Editorial: Another Republican victory
Republicans have scored another victory in a special Congressional election, raising their hopes for national success in November. Colorado’s 1st Congressional district is the latest. Before that, it was districts in Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Even more encouraging to Republicans was the result last week in New York City, where they polled more votes than the Democrats in a heavily Democratic district and were nosed out only by American Labor Party ballots.
In Denver on Tuesday, a GOP businessman took away from the Democrats a seat they have held since 1932. When Colorado went Republican in 1940, that district remained Democratic by almost 10,000. In 1942, its Democratic margin was 8,000. This week’s reversal was the more remarkable because the defeated candidate was a disabled bomber pilot with all the political glamor of a brilliant war record.
Politicians in Washington were watching this Denver test as an indication of urban trends. Democrats admit that the Roosevelt administration is weak in the rural areas of the North and West, and that it must depend largely on the city vote in November. Hence the Republican joy and Democratic gloom over results in Denver, following the show of GOP strength in Philadelphia and New York.
To lick the Democratic war hero, the Republicans campaigned on the national issue of “less government in business and more business in government.”
When an ordinary businessman, with no previous political experience and no campaign “it” can lick a wounded war hero on that plea, it must have a lot of public support.